Several inquiries made about Butler County ‘Jane Doe’

Butler County Coroner Dr. Lisa Mannix has been busy in the three weeks since her office released sketches of a facial rendering from skeletal remains found in West Chester Twp.

There have been about a dozen inquires from individuals and police agencies hopeful to close open cases of missing persons. But so far, the woman remains Jane Doe.

One of the inquiries is from the Trotwood Police Department near Dayton, which was hoping the body led them to learn what happened to Julie Earley, a 50-year-old woman who went missing in May 2012.

“We can’t completely eliminate anyone yet,” Mannix said, noting further DNA testing is still underway at the University of North Texas’ Health Science Center. But based on the remains and biological profile, some cases have been deemed an unlikely match.

The coroner’s office received a call about a missing woman who had been featured on the “Nancy Grace” television show that sounded promising as a match, Mannix said. But then the caller said the woman had only been missing for a few days and was pregnant at the time.

“But that is OK. We would rather have too many leads than none at all,” Mannix said.

On March 7, children found a skull in the woods behind their Gregory Creek Lane home in West Chester Twp. Rain and snow made finding additional remains difficult, Mannix said. But when the weather cleared, all of the woman’s remains were collected, along with other items believed to have belonged to her.

There were no forms of identification with or around the remains. It is believed the woman was in the West Chester Twp. area in late fall 2014, according to the coroner’s office.

The woman’s DNA, taken during a preliminary testing, has been run through the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System with no hit returned. Additional, more detained DNA testing is underway at the University of North Texas, according to the coroner.

If a positive ID is made, Mannix said that will also provide clues about her life that could lead to discovering what happened to her.

After the remains were found, the coroner’s office developed a biological profile and determined the remains were those of a white woman between the ages of 35 and 60, who stood between 5-foot-3 and 5-foot-9 inches tall.

Strands of hair, medium brown with some gray, were found with the skull. And the woman had full upper and lower dentures. She was wearing Faded Glory-brand jeans, size 12, and a medium white, short-sleeved, pullover shirt with red and blue horizontal stripes. Prescription glasses and reading glasses were also found near the woman’s skeletal remains.

The woman was wearing black SAS brand shoes, Mannix said.

A black fanny pack, containing lip balm, a disposable lighter, a small Swiss Army knife and scissors, that is believed to have belonged to the woman, may also be a clue to her identity. The fanny pack was inside a blue denim tote bag.

Jane Doe’s information has been entered into the the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), an online tool administered by the National Institute of Justice that is fully searchable by the public and includes a fee DNA collection program.

Under the DNA program, law enforcement officials are given free collection kits to obtain the DNA from the close relatives of missing people. If relatives are not available, like in the case of an unidentified person, scientists can sometimes a genetic profile from the missing person’s property. Mannix said that is the more detailed DNA they are waiting for. She said there are only a few labs in the country that do the testing.

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